The present invention is related to the communication of electronic documents among computers and traditional facsimile (fax) machines over a network. While traditional fax machines have been successfully relied upon to transmit electronic documents over the public switched telephone network (PSTN) for some time, a growing number of electronic documents are transmitted over public and private packet-switched data networks using, for example, electronic mail (e-mail) applications. However, because traditional fax machines are still commonly available and widely utilized, a need exists to facilitate communication among traditional fax machines connected to the PSTN and computers and other computing devices connected to public and private packet-switched data networks.
A traditional fax machine scans an image printed on a document and encodes the image by assigning digital codes to pixels of a dot matrix that represents the image. Once a traditional fax machine scans and encodes an image into digital form, electrical signals corresponding to the image can be sent over the PSTN to another traditional fax machine, which decodes the image and prints the image as a hardcopy document.
In a typical office environment equipped with a private packet-switched data network and access to a public packet-switched data network such as the Internet, a server is connected to the PSTN by one or more dedicated lines, such as fiber optic or copper T1/E1 lines. From the perspective of the server, the PSTN is both a source of incoming faxes as well as a destination of outgoing faxes. The server is also connected to the private packet-switched data network and, typically, the Internet. Further, the server may recognize computers and other computing devices connected to the private and public packet-switched data networks as both a source of incoming faxes as well as a destination of outgoing faxes.
“Online” fax services are available which make use of e-mail to communicate between a user with an e-mail account and a traditional fax machine. Because e-mail provides a means to send electronic documents of various formats between users by way of an “attachment” of the electronic documents, online fax services receive e-mail attachments, encode the attachments to a form suitable for use by a traditional fax machine, and transmit the encoded attachments to a traditional fax machine over the PSTN.
Existing online fax services rely upon a “server-side” configuration, which requires that a service provider's server execute a majority of the processes associated with the service. Also, existing online fax services are not intuitive to a user because the process of the service bears no resemblance to the steps taken to transmit documents between traditional fax machines.
FIG. 1 illustrates a diagram of a typical “fax over e-mail” system 100. System 100 includes a computer 110, a packet-switched data network 120, a server 130, a PSTN 150, and a traditional fax machine 160. The computer 110 is coupled to the packet-switched data network 120 to facilitate data communication between the computer 110 and the server 130. The server 130 is a general purpose computer configured to host websites, host e-mail services, and host facsimile services. Optionally, a server 140 may be required to perform at least some functions of the services hosted by the server 130, if the server 130 is unable to adequately perform the processing requirements of the functions due to high processing demands, processing limitations, and cost constraints.
In operation of the system 100, a user of the computer 110 attaches an electronic document to an e-mail and sends the e-mail to an intended recipient, such as the traditional fax machine 160, using the e-mail services hosted by the server 130. To that end, the e-mail and electronic document attached to the e-mail are transmitted from the computer 110 to the server 130, where the e-mail and electronic document are received by the e-mail service of the server 130. The e-mail service may separate the electronic document from the e-mail and provide the electronic document to the facsimile services of the server 130, along with a specific address (i.e., a PSTN telephone number) for delivery of the electronic document to a traditional fax machine over the PSTN 150. The facsimile services of the server 130 then transmits the electronic document to the traditional fax machine 160 over the PSTN 150, based on the specific address. Finally, the traditional fax machine 160 produces a printed copy of the electronic document received from the server over the PSTN. The fax over e-mail system 100 also receives faxes from the traditional fax machine 160 and transmits the faxes to the computer 110 over the packet-switched data network 120 as an attachment to an e-mail.
It is noted that the fax over e-mail system 100 relies upon a “server-side” configuration. In other words, the server 130 (and possibly the server 140) performs the majority of the processes required for the fax over e-mail system 100. Thus, the server 130 is required in every fax over e-mail system and must have the requisite processing horsepower to efficiently and adequately provide the services associated with the fax over email system 100.
FIG. 2 illustrates an alternative to the fax over e-mail system 100. FIG. 2 illustrates a diagram of a typical “fax over internet” system 200. System 200 includes a computer 210, a packet-switched data network 220, a server 230, a PSTN 250, and a traditional fax machine 260. The computer 210 is coupled to the data network 220 to facilitate data communication between the computer 210 and the server 230. The server 230 is a general purpose computer configured to host websites, host e-mail services, and host facsimile services. Optionally, a server 240 may be required to perform at least some functions of the services hosted by the server 230, if the server 230 is unable to adequately perform the processing requirements of the functions due to high processing demands, processing limitations, and cost constraints.
In operation of the system 200, a user of the computer 210 must navigate to an internet fax service website hosted by the server 230 and upload an electronic document to the server 230. The remainder of the processes executed by the fax service of the server 230 are similar to those described above with regard to the facsimile service of the server 130.
Again, it should be appreciated that the fax over internet system 200, like the fax over e-mail system 100, relies upon a server-side configuration. That is, the computer 210 operates merely as a client of the server 230 and, as such, the server 230 performs the majority of the processes required for the fax over internet system 200, without offloading processes required for the fax over internet system 200 to the computer 210.
Accordingly, new systems, methods, and apparatuses to address the shortcomings of the systems discussed above would be desirable.